Curacao, tiny island with big dreams of World Cup glory
Curacao football supporters pose beside a poster of international Leandro Bacuna, on the eve of the World Cup, in which the Caribbean island will be the smallest country ever to compete (Raul ARBOLEDA) "Small island, big dreams" reads a poster for the football team of the Caribbean island of Curacao -- the smallest country ever, by population, to qualify for football's World Cup. Since Curacao clinched qualification with a hard-fought 0-0 draw against Jamaica in November, the 160,000 inhabitants of the Dutch island famed for its eponymous sapphire liqueur are riding the crest of the Blue Wave, as the national side is dubbed. The qualification is expected to give tourism on the paradisical island of white sand beaches, which received 1.
5 million visitors last year, a boost. Visitor numbers were already up 13 percent in the first three months of the year. "Football is putting us on the global map," Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas, himself a former footballer, told AFP in an interview, predicting a visitor influx.
Far from the luxury seafront hotels and Caribbean cruise ships that dock in the port of the capital Willemstad, a group of teenagers kick a ball around a dirt pitch in the low-income neighborhood of Fuik. The players are from a foundation for young people from underprivileged backgrounds set up by former Dutch-Curacaoan manager Remko Bicentini, who played professional football in the Netherlands and later coached Curacao. On the gate, a motivational slogan in Papiamento, the creole spoken in the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, advises young people to take destiny in their hands.
"You are responsible for your future," it reads. - Diaspora's starring role - "If you come on holidays to Curacao, you see beaches and everything looks perfect," Bicentini said. "But there are also areas where poor people live.
" "Many families have three, four, five children but no money. We help them when they don't have enough to eat," he said. Neveron Alberto, one of his young disciples, dreams of being called up for the national team, but the road to selection is littered with obstacles for local players.